climate change

Sick of all the “the science is settled” and “the debate is over” man made climate change believers?

Then read this http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/the_skeptics_handbook_2-3_mq.pdf

Science can never be settled – a hypothesis is always there for the testing
Debate? what debate?
Science isnt done by democratic voting, its done using research, transparency and facts.

The effect – climate is changing – does not tell us *what* caused it. Glaciers may very well be retreating, but to blame that on CO2 is not science – the data reports the exact opposite to be true.

Do not confuse the effect with the cause.

exhibitionist

I have some photos in a local photo exhibition this week – the first one I’ve ever entered – and they look pretty good.

I decided to only enter photos I’ve taken this year, even though I have some corking photos from the UK and last year in Oz too. I dunno, call me a purist, but I think you should only exhibit (if you can pick any images you like from your collection) with the latest stuff you have – keep things moving in a forwards direction and not in a John Farnham, ever on his “last tour this time, no really, it is…” kind of a way.

So I went down there at 9 this morning to set up and then at 4 for the group photo and newspapers (I know!) and, despite its modest setting (the foyer of the local shopping centre) the 100 or so photos we have there make a good collection.

Here’s a rather basic pic of my board.

exbihition

4 of the 6 are taken with the Holga – who ever said film is dead?

Looking good I’d say

party time

Its party time next weekend – as we’re old farts, we’re having a joint hen and bucks party (hucks?) with lots of friends – and its an 80’s cocktail party.

Oh yes

Get your leather ties, jackets with roll up sleeves, leg warmers and severe makeup ready, we’re side step dancing and jitterbuggin’ all night.

Costume has been annoyingly difficult to source – we didn’t have that much time to get stuff, so ordering from the UK or US or even China on ebay wasn’t possible, which is a terrible shame as there was so much good stuff to be had. So we were limited to costume shops, ebay Australia, salvos and the like. Which has, frankly, been a nightmare.

I had the best I {heart} NY t-shirt, acid wash jeans and some wicked sunnies lined up on ebay, but got outbid and ridiculous prices – arse. Costume shops are a bit of a joke for blokes dressing up to say the least – its either a naff Ghostbusters outfit

or an overly expensive Michael Jackson red PVC get up

So, I have improvised with what I could find on ebay that would ship in time. Heaven help me.

Still waiting for the 3 most important bits – they have 6 postage days to get here, I reaaaaaaally hope they arrive or I’ll be going as Tom Cruise in Risky Business.

Mind you, I’m starting to think that might have been a better choice..

impressionista

as promised, some images from last nights shoot at the beach.

motion pans, horizontal and vertical, zoom blurs and a gorgeous portrait.

*sigh*

Why oh why are are leaders so unbelievably dumb?

Governments around the world are falling over themselves to invent new ways of penalising the humble motorist (the cause of all the world’s man made global warming, they’d have you believe) – CO2 based road taxes, CO2 based congestion charges, extra parking costs for a 4WD, and now pay as you drive is (again) being touted as the way to cure us all of our obsession with the car.

Install a GPS thingy in the car and it reports back to the Stazi government department where and when you drove and on what roads and they send you a bill. More if you drive on peak roads at peak times (doing frivolous and irresponsible things like “going to work”) and less if you drive on a track in the middle of the night.

Apparently the Dutch are going to start using this system, the UK thought about it and came under huge fire from an outraged public.

I have a number of problems with it.

1. The GPS thingy – this means that big brother the government now knows your every move. and what speed you drive at and who you associate with. who needs pesky surveillance laws, lets do it by stealth. 1984, anyone?

2. Cost – who is going to pay for all this? thats easy – Joe taxpayer, thats who. Its supposed to replace tax on fuel and road/registration tax. But I bet they don’t remove those – it’ll just be an extra “green” tax.

3. Congestion charge – many cities are already charging people to drive into them – London was one of the first – it really doesnt work (traffic is more or less the same as it ever was and they had to fiddle with the timing of traffic lights (yes, they really did this) to make traffic flow slower and increase bottlenecks in order to justify the expansion of the the zone and a massive price hike) but it does make people think twice about using the car and switch to public transport – so no need to add another technology.

3. Don’t we already have a system for pay as you drive? Well yes we do. Its bloody obvious really – we’re already taxed on petrol. So the more you drive, the more petrol you use and the more tax you pay. If you have a gas guzzler, you use more fuel and therefore pay more tax. No need for anything else. Simple huh? Ok, so its not time and location based – that would be simple to fix – more tax on fuel bought in certain postcodes or at differing times of the day – its not perfect, but it would work somewhat. People would avoid it by filling up elsewhere and at cheap times, but you cant always do that, so it would work.

So this new way of doing things is basically just a con – expensive, intrusive and totally unnecessary – there’s a system in place that works for most of the use cases – why create something new?

Cos they think we’re all stupid. Thanks for that.

trips to the beach

went down to the beach last night at sunset with the girls – the sunset looked promising (it wasn’t really that special in the end but its no biggie) and we had time before the girls needed to be in bed.

I picked up the cameras and a jumper too as it was a bit chilly in the evening air (isn’t it supposed to be summer already? I remember last year it was properly hot by now) and jumped in the car (I know, its only a 10 min walk, but we didn’t have that much time)

Was lovely down there and I took some wicked photos (for which you will have to wait as I’m in the city today and my photos are at home and I’ve not quite finished processing) – abstract and motion blur ones. Took a couple of portraits too which came out pretty well, although I wish I’d thought to being the flash gun to add a little fill light to one of the shots. Next time – I know what I want to achieve in the shot and how to get it now.

The girls went off up the beach jumping over the waves and splashing about in the twilight – they got totally soaked too – they are going to have to wear their bathers when we go again, they just can’t help themselves!

So yeah, was a nice night, relaxed, creative and fun.

Oh, and for those of you who want to know where I live – well, I’m not telling you specific details for obvious reasons, but here’s a general view of the bay from Google Maps.

The bay where I live

Nice, huh?

money machine

I have an idea.

This whole man made global warming thing, as nuts and un-scientific as it is, has such a momentum and such a religious fervour about it that I think I might stop worrying about the truth for a bit and start thinking more like Al Gore.

The Big A, Mr Nobel Peace Prize himself isn’t as dumb as people make out. Sure, An Inconvinient Truth was a load of baloney that has since been shot down in flames, but Al knew that was going to happen and he doesnt care a jot. Because all he needed to do was to create enough momenetum and panic that the actual science no longer matters. Since the films release he’s invested in a load of green technology companies and stands to make a fortune when CO2 legislation gets passed at some point.

Its a nice earner – call for doomsday, do just enough to keep the issue in the air and happen to be on the board of directors of the very companies that offer technology to solve the problem. Thats pretty smart.

So, I just might do something similar – it should be easy enough – especially as some of the CO2 legislational effects are coming to pass already, science or no science.

I was thinking electricty. We all know that its an essential service that we can’t really do without – well, its generated by nasty CO2 emitting powerstations – particularly here in Oz, where people don’t want anything to do with nuclear power. The TV is full of advertisments for solar hot water systems – a sensible and predictable thing to sell and buy in a hot sun-rich country. But they’re pretty expensive and very toxic to manufacture (which is bound to push up prices in the new carbon economy) so what about personal wind energy?

We have a load of wind in Perth – its one of the windiest cities on the planet – so it should be easy enough to come up with simple wind powered generators for the average home that dont cost the earth and more importantly, look good and don’t make a load of noise. Well, even if they do, you’re saving the planet, so thats okay, right?

In the future, I predict energy being a lot more expensive to buy for saps like you and I – its very generation will be penalised to hell and back for being CO2 heavy. So, like it or not, and as stupid as the CO2 argument is (see earlier blog posts), theres a huge market of households that are going to have massive energy bills unnecessarily foisted onto them developing out there.

Its also a good thing, regardless of the CO2 nonsense – personal production of energy will prolong the very finite natural resources that we’re so dependent on. Some degree of self sufficiency has to be a good thing regardless of your views on man made global warming. If the planet warms, we’ll need air con and thus power. If it actually cools like some predict, then we’ll need heat and thus power. Its a win win.

Cheap wind power – has to be a contender and I’m going to look into it. Come the CO2 economy, I bet there’ll even be government grants like there are for insulation and solar power already.

Go wind.

environmental damage

so we’re all scrambling about being told we’re killing the earth in our 4WD’s, being taxed $3 per flight and offsetting CO2 emissions, buying Toyota Priuses (Prii?) and being told we’re to blame.

Well, check this out

We in the developed world are far from perfect, but this is insane. Its like the industrial revolution all over again – and that was so bad entire cities turned black with soot.

If I was looking for ways to change the direction of the planet, I’d be starting here..

time out

Went down to the beach for an hour with Jay just to chill and get some fresh air.

Beautiful day, just us, the film cameras, a few dog walkers and the sound of the turquoise Indian Ocean

garden antics

You may have guessed that I rather like gardening. There’s something very satisfying in getting nature to bend to my will. I’m kidding myself, its more like nature doing what the hell it pleases and me carving a little order within it all.

We got given a load of big outdoor pots by Jay’s parents a few weeks back as they were moving to a place with much less garden. The trouble with pots here is that the summer is very dry and hot and they would need watering every day or they’d be frazzled really quickly. And ideally, this means irrigation (again).

As luck would have it, there’s a valved riser by the patio that I guess was meant for this kind of thing, so yesterday I popped off to the hardware store for piping and drip sprinklers, potting compost, plants, flowers etc to get it all hooked up and looking nice.

I had to go back this morning (at 7:30am as it turned out, thanks to the fookin’ dog that started yapping and carrying on at 6:30 so I had to get up) for a couple of parts that I needed, but was back in time to have it all done and dusted before 11am.

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is some of my garden so far – there is still muuuuch work to be done though, which will keep me happy and busy throughout the summer.

This new grass may not look like much, but its growing really fast

Pipes go up the wall, along the pergola, down the upright and along the ground.

The patio is starting to look nice at last. We have a grape vine that is busy growing over the top of the patio – hopefully it’ll look all Mediterranean before too long.